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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29623908">Red</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirMuffinsworth/pseuds/SirMuffinsworth'>SirMuffinsworth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Multiversal Snapshots of a Love Between a Spiky-Haired Boy and a Red-Haired Girl [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Apathy Attacks, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hajime is Comforted, Hurt/Comfort, Mahiru is the Comforter, Our boy is just having a rough time, Post Episode: Hope, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Some trigger warnings in the notes at the start, Very Minor Self-Harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:14:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,339</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29623908</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirMuffinsworth/pseuds/SirMuffinsworth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Izuru Kamukura isn't quite as gone as Hajime pretends.</p><p>But he can't tell the others. He can't lose them again.</p><p>What he fails to account for, however, is how much attention a certain redhead is paying him, and she notices that something is wrong.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hinata Hajime/Koizumi Mahiru</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Multiversal Snapshots of a Love Between a Spiky-Haired Boy and a Red-Haired Girl [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2176581</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Red</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>-TRIGGER WARNINGS-</p><p>This fic contains the following:<br/>- Repetition of short phrases<br/>- Some very minor self harm, not in the traditional depressed or self-punishing sense, but it's still there<br/>- Apathy attacks, which are a very rare version of panic attacks<br/>- Some distressing imagery right at the start (flashback to the Kamukura Project)</p><p>If any of these things have a danger to trigger something for you, I suggest you take your leave now. You have been warned.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a word for this sensation.</p><p>What was it again?</p><p>It had been a long while since Hajime had used words. Or language. Or even really thought.</p><p>What was that word again?</p><p>Oh yeah.</p><p>Agony.</p><p>Had Hajime had the capability to scream, he was sure he would wake people on the opposite side of the globe, but he was silent. The inhibitor was still shoved into his mouth, which would have muffled any noises he would have made, but that was just standard procedure. It wasn’t really necessary today.</p><p>Today they were working on his throat. Vocal chords, esophagus, swallowing muscles, you name it.</p><p>Ultimate Singer, Ultimate Speed Eater, Ultimate Vocal Coach, Ultimate Opera Star… there were a lot of talents that required those areas to be improved. It was just a shame that Hope’s Peak either couldn’t afford, or more likely, didn’t bother with anesthetics.</p><p>After all, the boy undergoing this torture would cease to be soon. He’d been doing this for three months, two more and the transformation would be complete. </p><p>Hajime’s limbs scraped and writhed against the sturdy metal restraints that bound them, but he was secured tight. The doctors had learned their lesson after his escape attempts in the past, they had dug the cash out for the real deal. No way even the muscular density of the Ultimate Bodybuilder would so much as strain it. Densening his muscles had been pretty early on their list, it had been done in the first two weeks. It hadn’t made him appear any more strong, it just densened the muscles he already had. That torture had been full-body. He could still feel the fibers tearing.</p><p>Well, maybe he was just feeling the nerves in his neck right now. The open, recycled air of the lab was not kind to them.</p><p>How was Hajime still sane?</p><p>He had no idea.</p><p>No human should ever have to endure this. No human ever had in the past. The body wasn’t designed for this. The mind, even, didn’t know what to make of any of it. Hajime knew somewhere in the back of his mind that they hadn’t stolen his memories yet, but he could still barely remember his own name through the pain. He felt the scalpel glide around his nerves, the clamps pinching them off to pervent him from bleeding out as they were gingerly severed by the metal blade, to be restitched later.</p><p>Had it been an hour? Two? A day, maybe? A minute?</p><p>Did it matter?</p><p>No matter how long it went on for, there would be more. There was always more.</p><p>They were never going to be done with him. The day the doctors set down their gleaming scalpels and removed their gloves would be the day he ceased to be. In effect, they would never be done with him, because he wouldn’t exist past their completion date.</p><p>Still, it ended, as it always did, when one of their hands slipped, and the scalpel in his hand carved a slash into Hajime’s eyeball.</p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>Hajime’s cheeks were wet as he jolted upwards in bed, sending what few covers and pillows remained from his thrashing flying off to the floor. He quelled the scream that had risen in his throat, breathing heavily as the tears continued to stream down his face.</p><p>That was the third night that week he had had that nightmare. Technically, that meant he was getting better.</p><p>Didn’t feel that way.</p><p>The boy groaned at the clock on the table beside him, reading 1:41 in red luminescence.</p><p>“Well, I’m up now,” he thought, slowly setting his feet on the metal floor, “Might as well go get some fresh air.”</p><p>The hallway of the quarters was dark, with the lights being on low from 10 pm to 8 am. Still, he had made this trek enough times to know how to get to the deck from his quarters. He swung the door that led outside open, and took a sharp inhale of salty sea air. </p><p>The ship, formerly of the Future Foundation, that they were staying on wasn’t a very large ship, but the deck was large enough to pace around whenever Hajime found himself needing to clear his head. And after that nightmare, he always needed to. </p><p>Why was it always the day they worked on his neck? He had undergone much worse during the six months he had been transformed slowly into Kamukura. Much longer, much more painful procedures had been done. Maybe it was just because that was the one procedure when he hadn’t been able to scream. Nobody would have come anyways, nobody ever did, but there must be something instinctual about needing to do it. </p><p>After all, screams of pain are the human body’s way of automatically calling for help. For your friends to come save you.</p><p>Being unable to scream just made it so that every single part of your brain knew there was no hope. Nobody was coming. Nobody cared.</p><p>The mental image replayed in his mind, bringing bile to his throat. Hajime leaned over the side, praying for it to pass, but his dinner still went sailing into the sea below.</p><p>“Damn it,” he muttered, “After Teruteru worked so hard…”</p><p>The boy sighed and leaned against the railing, steadying himself. The course he had set when they had departed Future Foundation headquarters had been towards a small tropical island. Not Jabberwock Island, that would be too obvious. Just a different one, small and unnamed. They could build their own cottages there, out of wood. Hajime had the Ultimate Carpenter and Ultimate Architect talents, after all, he could pull it off with the manpower everybody else provided.</p><p>Ugh.</p><p>Hajime spat into the sea in disgust. He had used his Ultimate Programmer and Ultimate Doctor talents to help his slumbering friends out of the Neo World Program and restore all of their lost memories. He had used his many Ultimate Martial Arts talents to fend off the brainwashed soldiers at the Future Foundation headquarters. He had used his Ultimate Wayfarer talent to chart a course to the island that they were now headed to. And he intended to use his talents to build them a home there.</p><p>How many times would these disgusting talents help him? Or his friends? How many times would something he paid for in blood, sanity, and even his own personality come to his aid? It sickened him.</p><p>And oh god, was it ever boring.</p><p>It was so boring, all of it. He felt bored all the time. All of Teruteru’s food tasted the same as he expected it to. Every bump of the boat, every call of the seagulls, he had predicted them by observing the wave patterns ahead and the nature of the birds. He hadn’t even been paying attention, it was like an afterthought. Even his friends were beginning to become predictable. He always knew when Gundham would interject into a conversation with inanity. He could time Hiyoko’s insults towards Mikan to the millisecond, even half a minute before they happened, as he knew what direction the conversation would take. It was so, so very boring.</p><p>“No,” he caught himself, “Stop… Don’t think that!”</p><p>Trying to repress it never worked. It just made it worse.</p><p>The more time dragged on, the more Hajime empathized with the emotionless Kamukura that had once inhabited his body. It was all so dull. So lifeless. So predictable. Emotion was predictable, too. Junko Enoshima had been wrong, despair was no more of a wildcard than any other human emotion. Hajime knew how he would react to things before he experienced them. He knew what they would make him feel like. Maybe it would bore him less if he just stopped feeling at all…</p><p>Hajime was having an attack. This had happened before. </p><p>God, it was boring.</p><p>Shut up. Don’t think.</p><p>So boring.</p><p>Stop it.</p><p>Boring.</p><p>No.</p><p>Boring.</p><p>Boring.</p><p>Boring.</p><p>Boring.</p><p>“SHUT UP!” Hajime screamed, slamming his hand down onto the metal railing of the boat. The segment dented as his fist struck it, and he could feel the bone of his hand break. The pain flared, bringing yet more tears to his eyes as he fell to the ground, clutching it close. </p><p>It hurt. He wanted it to stop.</p><p>He wanted.</p><p>He.</p><p>“Right…” he thought through the pain, “Me. I want this to stop. It’s not boring. Don’t focus on that, focus on you.”</p><p>Hajime stayed there for a while, holding his hand in pain and quivering in the salty outside air. He fought off the thoughts that pervaded his mind with difficulty, but he won this time. This attack hadn’t been so bad, all things considered. </p><p>“Ugh,” he muttered, sitting up against the railing, “That’s gonna raise a few questions. Wonder how I’ll play that off.”</p><p>His friends, the ones slumbering below, Hajime knew were both his greatest comfort and his greatest fear. Being around them helped him. It helped him stabilize, to focus on who he was. But at the same time, he didn’t know what he would do if they ever found out that he wasn’t as in control as he told them he was. </p><p>They might just toss him overboard, and he couldn’t honestly decide if he thought that would be a rash decision. Izuru Kamukura had slaughtered without the slightest regard for human life, and now…</p><p>Hajime still wasn’t as “Hajime” as he pretended.</p><p>Truth be told, between the names Hajime and Izuru, the boy on the ship deck wasn’t quite certain which suited him better. He wasn’t the emotionless husk, as demonstrated by his terror of being cast aside by the only people he cared about. Yet, he wasn’t the boy he had been before the project either. He wasn’t quite sure who he was.</p><p>The Ultimate Doctor talent assisted in the boy resetting his hand bones. It, too, was painful, but necessary. The dented railing was already going to raise questions, he didn’t need to parade around a matching bandaged hand to paint ‘guilty’ all over him.</p><p>Maybe he should have stayed with the Future Foundation. They might have known how to deal with this. How to help him. Purge these godforsaken talents from his mind.</p><p>Then again, he would lose them in the process.</p><p>Fuyuhiko. Kazuichi. Akane. Sonia. Gundham. Nekomaru. Mikan. Ibuki. Hiyoko. Peko. The Impostor. Teruteru. Ryota. Nagito.</p><p>Mahiru.</p><p>No. That wasn’t an option. He couldn’t lose them again. Their deaths in the Neo World Program had torn his fragile heart to pieces, he couldn’t bear to lose all they had built together. All of the feelings he had for them.</p><p>That just meant he couldn’t lose himself. No matter what.</p><p>“I should try to get more sleep,” he thought, sighing as he stood, “I’m on breakfast duty in the morning. I could probably do it while sleep deprived, but it would just make it worse on me. I’d like to rely on the talent as little as possible.”</p><p>Hajime slowly made his way back to his quarters, shutting the iron bolt door behind him softly. The rooms here were hardly soundproof, with only Hajime’s having had padding installed in the walls so that his nightmares wouldn’t wake the others. </p><p>The boy went to his bathroom to wash his face, feeling the crustiness the tears had left on his cheeks after they had dried. The lightbulb flicked on when he pulled the chain, and he froze to the vision he saw reflected in the mirror.</p><p>Red. He hated the color red. Red like Nagito, impaled on the floor. Red like Hiyoko, her throat still dripping blood on the pillar. Red like the Impostor, butchered on the wooden floor. Red like Chiaki, impaled through the chest and dying. Red like Mahiru, collapsed in a pool of her own blood.</p><p>Red like the eye that stared back at him whenever he saw himself. A reminder. A curse. It was disgusting.</p><p>Hajime’s fist lashed out without thinking. The mirror shattered at the punch, sending shards of glass falling all over the floor. The boy winced, feeling the blood begin to ooze from the fresh cuts on his fingers and knuckles. So much for having an uninjured hand.</p><p>His blood was red, too. Ugh. How boring. Always the same.</p><p>Hajime shook his head to clear it, succeeding only slightly. He sighed, deciding by the broken glass in the sink to forego washing his face. He opened the now-facant mirror frame and retrieved some bandages and ointment, which stung to apply.</p><p>The sleep he returned to was fitful. That was nothing new. He hadn’t gotten good sleep since he woke up from the Program. He could barely remember the sensation of being well-rested.</p><p>He knew it was only a matter of time before something broke.</p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>Mahiru rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she turned the corner into the dining hall, welcoming the heartwarming aroma of eggs, toast, hashbrowns, waffles, syrup, pancakes, and bacon that permeated the room as it caused her stomach to growl. </p><p>“Morning, everybody,” she waved at the members of her class that had already assembled. At various tables were Ibuki, Mikan, Akane, and Nekomaru, with Hajime waving at her from the attached kitchenette.</p><p>“Mornin’,” Akane mumbled through a mouth full of egg. The gymnast was still recovering from her months spent starving herself, but it was heartening to see she didn’t let it dampen her spirits. </p><p>“Sleep well?” Hajime asked as he delivered her a steaming platter of glistening breakfast food, completed by a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.</p><p>“Better, yeah,” the photographer nodded, “Than usual, anyway. I suppose I have you to thank for that.”</p><p>“Oh, I just do what I can,” Hajime smiled and waved her off, heading over to greet a groggy Ryota, who had just entered.</p><p>It was true, Mahiru had been making use of Hajime’s talents, as had the rest of her class, to help her cope. Turns out, when you’re dealing with the memories of hell itself, brought forth to your eyes, and trying to untangle your body’s addiction to negative emotion, someone with all of the talent of an Ultimate Therapist, Counselor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, and Sociologist worked wonders.</p><p>Mahiru had wondered occasionally how Hajime dealt with his own trauma, but she assumed he just talked to himself in the mirror about it or something. The photographer turned to see the boy merrily cheering up their class’s scrawny animator, admiring the cheerful expression on his face and his wide smile.</p><p>Hajime could be cute if he had the right lighting. She always gave him crap for how his expressions looked goofy, but in reality, those were the expressions she liked on him the most of all. They were just so… Hajime. They almost let you forget the thing he had been while the rest of them had been despair, and maybe that was a good thing. To forget every now and then.</p><p>Mahiru dug her camera out of her handbag and leaned forward. The flash was muffled by the lightbulbs illuminating the room, but he still noticed.</p><p>“Hey!” he exclaimed, expression instantly souring. The boy turned away from Mahiru, trying to hide his face.</p><p>The photographer sighed sadly, “Why do you always flinch like that? If I want to get photos of you, I have to be so sneaky these days. What gives?”</p><p>“Excuse me for not wanting my photo taken without my permission, thanks,” the boy groaned, turning back to serving breakfast.</p><p>“But you weren’t like this before!” she insisted, waving her hand at him indignantly, “Back in the program, you didn’t care when I took your picture!”</p><p>Hajime just sighed, shaking his head softly. No verbal response came as Mahiru waited, so she eventually turned back to her food.</p><p>“What was that all about?” Hiyoko asked as she took the seat next to Mahiru.</p><p>“I don’t know,” she sighed, shaking her head, “I just wish I could get some good photos of that guy without him running away from them like that.”</p><p>Hiyoko blinked, “Well… are photos of him more important than photos of anybody else? Do you not have that many or something?”</p><p>Mahiru shrugged, “W-well… it’s just that he’s new to us. He wasn’t a member of our class at Hope’s Peak, so I didn’t get any opportunities to take photos of him until the Neo World Program. And since I only knew him for about a week in there…”</p><p>Mahiru trailed off, hoping Hiyoko understood her meaning. It wasn’t entirely true, if her words were honest then she would put just as much emphasis on taking pictures of Ryota, but she didn’t. Truth be told, she just enjoyed pictures of Hajime. They calmed her down, even when the boy himself wasn’t around to do it.</p><p>“Yo Hajime,” Fuyuhiko asked, “What’s up with your hand?”</p><p>Mahiru glanced back at the boy, seeing that his hand was wrapped in bandages she hadn’t noticed before.</p><p>“Oh, not much,” Hajime waved the yakuza boy off, “I just scraped it up a bit is all, don’t worry.”</p><p>“I-if it’s hurt, I c-could take care of it…” Mikan stammered, looking with a concerned expression at the ahoged boy.</p><p>“It’s fine, Mikan,” Hajime reassured her, patting the nurse on the shoulder, “Just enjoy your breakfast.”</p><p>Mahiru wasn’t the biggest fan of how her heart burned to see Hajime so cheerfully interacting with another of her female classmates, but she swallowed that emotion as she turned back to her meal. </p><p>“Hmmm?” Hiyoko asked, “What’s with that expression?”</p><p>“N-nothing!” Mahiru responded too quickly, “D-don’t worry about it!”</p><p>The dancer raised her eyebrow, but said nothing. </p><p>“Yummy!” Akane exclaimed in a loud voice, mouth dripping with drool as she shoveled food into her gullet, “It’s just as good as when Teruteru makes it! Damn, Hajime, not bad!”</p><p>“I agree,” the Impostor nodded, “It’s quite good. Your talents rear their head again, my friend.”</p><p>A strange expression crossed the boy’s face as he nodded, “Uh… thanks, guys.”</p><p>Mahiru cocked her head at him, but she wasn’t certain enough to comment. Still, she swore she could see conflict in the heterochromatic eyes of the boy. Something a little darker than she usually saw there, at least, when she found herself staring into them from across the room for just a little too long.</p><p>Eventually, everybody had a plate. Fuyuhiko and Peko shared a table with Teruteru and a grossly obvious Kazuichi, who kept straining over his shoulder to look at Sonia. The princess herself sat alongside Gundham, Ibuki, Nagito, and Mikan. Akane, Nekomaru, and the Impostor shared their table with Ryota, who looked intimidated by the three’s ravenous appetites on display in front of him. Hiyoko sat with Mahiru, of course, and that left Hajime to sit down… by himself?</p><p>“Uh, Hajime,” Mahiru called over to him, “We have space at our table if you want to sit here, instead of all by yourself.”</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry about me,” the boy replied, “I, uh… wouldn’t want to interrupt your girl talk.”</p><p>“He’s right,” Hiyoko chuckled, “At least he knows his place, heh heh.”</p><p>“My point exactly,” Hajime rolled his eyes.</p><p>Mahiru tried to think up an argument, but couldn’t. Hiyoko’s superior giggling irritated her more than usual this morning, maybe because of who it was at the expense of. Ever since she had woken up from the Neo World Program, memories of school and despair restored, she had always felt a little bad for the boy. He was an outsider here, among this group. Mahiru couldn’t even imagine the circumstances that must have led him down the road he had chosen, leading him to the Kamukura project. She had always had her talent, she didn’t know what it must have been like for him to grow up in a life so different from that. </p><p>It wasn’t like her class didn’t like the guy. From what she knew, his bonds with the other survivors from their killing game were pretty deep, especially with Fuyuhiko. Some, such as Teruteru, had taken a little time to warm up to him, since the chef had only known Hajime for the three days it had taken for the boy to sentence him to death, but even those had evetually come around. Still though, there were times like this when the boy still seemed like an outsider. A visitor. A stranger, even. It didn’t sit right with her.</p><p>Well, maybe she was baised. Before her death in the game, she had probably been the one to seek Hajime out the most to spend time with. It had just been her desperate need for somebody else with something akin to a straight head on their shoulders at first, but her attachment to him had grown exponentially the longer she had spent with him.</p><p>In such a short time, only a little over a week, the boy had grown into a very important person to her. She knew she would die of embarrassment if she ever admitted it, but in the “perfect landscape” her fragmented mind had conjured after her virtual demise, the one the Kamukura AI had woken her up from, she and Hajime had known each other.</p><p>Quite well, actually. Far better than they had known each other in their time at Hope’s Peak. Probably better than how well they know each other in the real world.</p><p>After all, they’d been an item. She and Hajime had been dating in her dream. Hell, not just dating, they’d been in love.</p><p>Mahiru sighed as she finished her breakfast in silence. Her crush on the boy who had reawoken inside the body of the Ultimate Hope was one she kept close to her chest. She knew she had to tell him at some point, but it was hard to muster the courage. After all, they were to be living together for just about the rest of their lives, imagine the awkwardness if he didn’t reciprocate.</p><p>Mahiru slapped her cheeks to ground herself, taking her plate back over into the kitchen area to be cleaned. She was surprised to find the exact boy she had been thinking about already there, washing pans and plates in the soapy sink.</p><p>“Hey, just set it on the counter,” Hajime nodded at her.</p><p>“Sure…” she nodded back, “Did you finish already? You were the last one to sit down…”</p><p>“I didn’t have much of an appetite. Besides, I’m a fast eater.”</p><p>“Alright then. Do you need any help with those dishes?”</p><p>“Nah, I’ll be alright by myself, I think,” Hajime’s smile warmed her troubled heart somewhat, “You just head back and relax. I don’t think you’re on the docket for any chores around the ship today, so you’ve got the day off, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she nodded, “What do you have the entire schedule memorized?”</p><p>The boy suddenly looked down, “Uh… well, yeah, I have photographic memory now, so…”</p><p>“Oh, right. Wow, those talents are hard to keep track of. How do you even keep it all straight?”</p><p>Hajime didn’t respond, instead focusing intently on washing the dishes. Mahiru examined his face, and found his expression tense.</p><p>“Hajime?” she asked, “Are you… alr---”</p><p>“I’m fine, Mahiru,” the boy snapped. The photographer’s eyes widened at his tone.</p><p>“...sorry,” the boy eventually said, shaking his head, “I uh… didn’t sleep too well. I didn’t mean to bark like that.”</p><p>“It’s… alright, I guess,” Mahiru still couldn’t quite explain why she was worried about the boy. It was like inner conflict was radiating off of him. </p><p>Before she could press the issue any further, the Impostor came in carrying the empty plates of everybody else in the dining hall.</p><p>“Here’s the last of them, Hajime,” the chubby man said, setting the pile down.</p><p>“Thanks,” Hajime replied, setting about the stack quickly. There was a… tension to his movements. Each one was deliberate, every stroke of the sponge optimal, courtesy of his talents, but he seemed to be rushing it somewhat. It wasn’t as graceful as he usually was.</p><p>“We were just discussing the prospect of fishing off the side of the boat as a class,” the Impostor told the two of them, “We have enough food to last us the trip and then some, but fishing should be a good skill to build for all of us. You could show us how it’s done, Hajime, I’m sure you know how.”</p><p>Mahiru saw the boy’s shoulders tense before he responded quickly, “I don’t think I can make that, I… have something else I have to do. In my quarters.”</p><p>The Impostor nodded slowly, “...very well, next time then. And you, Mahiru?”</p><p>“I’ll…” the photographer’s concerned gaze never left Hajime, “...see about it.”</p><p>Hajime finished washing the last of the dishes, setting the final plate down on the rack to air dry. He quickly dried his hands on a towel, before walking out of the kitchen and exiting the dining room. To Mahiru, his movements struck as oddly hasty.</p><p>“What’s going on with him?” she wondered, “Maybe I should...”</p><p>~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>When the others went fishing, the only ones who had a chance of catching anything at all in these waters were Nekomaru, Akane, and Gundham. Hiyoko wouldn’t even try, being too grossed out by the bait. None of the others would accomplish anything at all. It would be wasted effort for them.</p><p>Hajime knew this. He could tell easily.</p><p>It was so boring.</p><p>“Dammit,” he muttered, clutching his head and slamming his quarters door shut behind him, “Not again…”</p><p>This cycle was getting tiring. Desperately attempting to quash the boredom that bubbled up so naturally and so often… it was exhausting. Maybe it would be better to just let himself grow apathetic.</p><p>“NO!” he exclaimed, banging his head against the wall, “Stop thinking that!”</p><p>Why should he stop, though? It’s not like it really mattered.</p><p>“Shut up!”</p><p>Why were all these boring people so important to him? Why did he cling to them so desperately? What was special about them, really?</p><p>“SHUT UP!”</p><p>Hajime slammed his head against the wall again. He wasn’t really sure what that would accomplish, but he just knew he needed to get these thoughts out of his head somehow. He felt a screw in the metal paneling tear a small cut in his forehead, and the pain jolted him back to his senses once again.</p><p>“I want to stop,” he sighed, crumpling to the floor sadly, “I want. Me. I’m… me still.”</p><p>The pain in his head was throbbing, one of the worst headaches he had ever experienced, but the intrusive apathy slowly began to fade.</p><p>“Why do they always have to mention it?” he asked nobody in particular. The universe, probably, “Cooking, memory, fishing… why is everything the talent? Why do they not---”</p><p>A knock sounded at the door. A polite, restrained one, of three raps, evenly spaced. It was Mahiru at the door, he could already tell. What did she want?</p><p>“Oh yeah,” he remembered, “She probably noticed something was up in the kitchen. That was when this attack started. I’ll have to think up some excuse.”</p><p>Slowly, Hajime rose to his feet and opened the door, revealing the redhead waiting for him. Immediately, the girl’s eyes widened with concern.</p><p>“Hajime!” she exclaimed, pointing at his head, “You’re bleeding! Are you alright?”</p><p>Oh, yeah, right. Shit.</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he put on a fake smile, “I just bumped my head. What’s up? You need something?”</p><p>Mahiru narrowed her eyes at him, “You know, Hajime, for somebody who supposedly has all the talent in the world, you’re pretty bad at lying. What’s going on?”</p><p>Ouch. At least that was something his talents didn’t change, which is what he wanted, but seriously, blunt much?</p><p>“It’s…” he sighed, trying to find the right words, “Nothing you need to concern yourself about, alright? I just had a… rough night, okay?”</p><p>The girl’s expression softened somewhat, “Do you… wanna, um... talk about it?”</p><p>Hajime blinked at her, “Uh… what do you mean?”</p><p>“W-well, it’s just that… whenever I or any of the others are troubled, you go out of your way to help us out… If something is bothering you, I’d like to return the favour.”</p><p>“Well, there’s not really anything to worry about, I’m serious,” lying felt wrong when it was to her, but he couldn’t help it, “There’s no need to trouble yourself, Mahiru.”</p><p>The photographer’s eyes instantly flashed with a mixture of anger and concern, “Jeez! What’s with you, Hajime? What are you hiding?”</p><p>“I’m not---”</p><p>“Ugh, shut up, okay? I’m coming in.”</p><p>With that, the redhead pushed past him and entered his room, before he could react. His eyes widened with panic when her head snapped to attention at his bathroom, her vision finding his shattered mirror.</p><p>“W-what…” she murmured as Hajime shut the door quickly.</p><p>“It’s nothing, Mahiru,” he said as he grabbed her shoulders, intent on escorting her out, “If you don’t mind, if you could please---”</p><p>“Hajime!” she tugged herself away from him, “What’s going on with you!? Why won’t you say anything!?”</p><p>“Because I can’t!” he blurted out before he could stop himself. Fantastic. Now he had her worried. He could tell by her eyes. She wasn’t gonna let this go without a fight.</p><p>“...what do you mean, you can’t?” she asked slowly, meeting his gaze with an emotion he couldn’t identify, but made him uncomfortable enough to turn away.</p><p>“I… just can’t, alright? I just can’t.”</p><p>Slowly, Mahiru placed her hands on his shoulders, drawing his face back to hers and forcing their eyes to meet.</p><p>“Hajime,” she murmured, her voice full of genuine concern, “Is this about Kamukura?”</p><p>He froze. How did she know that? What the fuck? She wasn’t supposed to know anything about that!</p><p>“That’s a yes, then,” the girl sighed, “I figured. Hajime, you’ve helped the rest of us out so much, we all just sort of assumed you yourself were okay. But… if you’re still troubled by the things you did…”</p><p>“It’s not that,” he sighed, “Not really, anyway.”</p><p>Mahiru sat down on his bed softly, motioning him to join her. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he obliged.</p><p>“Tell me,” she said, “I’ll listen. And you have my word I won’t judge you, okay? I know I can be hard on you, but if you need a listener, I’m all ears for you. We’re friends, after all, aren’t we?”</p><p>Hajime sighed. It was true. He considered all the members of class 77 his friends, at least to an extent (Nagito may be the exception that proved the rule), but he was closer to Mahiru than most of them. He ahd the photographer had spent a lot of time together in the Program, before she had been killed. He still remembered how much her death had torn him apart.</p><p>Could he trust her to keep it a secret? He wasn’t sure.</p><p>A part of him wanted to, though.</p><p>“Just…” he strained, “Promise me you won’t tell the others?”</p><p>The girl nodded, laying a supportive hand over his own, which was tensed in his lap.</p><p>“I… haven’t been entirely honest with you all,” Hajime sighed, not meeting her gaze, “...about Kamukura, I mean.”</p><p>“How so?”</p><p>“I… don’t know if he’s as gone as we think he is.”</p><p>Mahiru cocked her head to the side, “But… you’re you, right?”</p><p>“For now, I am. But… it’s hard, sometimes. To… stay that way, I mean.”</p><p>“Tell me.”</p><p>Hajime sighed, “Every so often, I have… let’s call them attacks. It tends to happen whenever I’ve been relying too much on my talents, or not enough things have been around to remind me of myself, or… well, you get the idea. My mind starts… rebelling, if I’m being honest. It gets really hard to care about things when you can predict everything that’s going to happen.”</p><p>Mahiru blinked, processing, “So… you have a hard time caring about things? When you have one of these attacks?”</p><p>“Well, yeah, but that’s not the extent of it. You remember how Kamukura was bored by everything? I… start to feel that way, too. It feels so… empty inside. Like I’m barely human anymore. It’s… sickening. But, well, I don’t think of it as sickening at the time, it’s just another boring thing.”</p><p>Mahiru nodded slowly, beginning to understand, “Right, I see. Is this… because of your talents?”</p><p>“I think so. Bringing back my personality, emotions, and memories didn’t make the talents any less effective, like they thought it would. But the two do clash. And Mahiru… I’m not sure I can keep winning.”</p><p>“How often have these attacks been happening?”</p><p>“Whenever something triggers them, honestly. If you… noticed I was acting strange this morning, it’s because I had one during breakfast. I just wanted to get back to my room as fast as possible to… deal with it.”</p><p>Mahiru’s eyes widened, “This morning? That recently? Are you alright?”</p><p>“Y-yeah, at least I am now. I uh… kinda cleared my head in the old-fashioned way, but it did the trick at least.”</p><p>Hajime’s lame attempt at humor fell flat as Mahiru realized what the blood on his forehead meant. The photographer’s face twisted in horror as it dawned on her.</p><p>“Hajime, that is not a solution!” she exclaimed, “I understand doing whatever to make the attacks stop, but… you can’t hurt yourself to do it!”</p><p>He sighed, shaking his head, “Sometimes it’s all that works. Just like something has to trigger the attacks, something has to pull me out of them. Something that reminds me strongly of my own ego. Like, for example, wanting pain to stop. Kamukura didn’t care about pain, but I do. I want pain to stop, that’s something that’s uniquely me. So… it helps, if nothing else will.”</p><p>Mahiru didn’t respond immediately. A turn of his eyes revealed her face to be trembling as her eyes watered up. Slowly, the photographer pulled the boy into a hug. He could feel her shaking arms squeezing him tightly, which made him blush somewhat.</p><p>“Tell me, Hajime,” she whispered, “Why am I only hearing about this now? Why would you keep this a secret from all of us?”</p><p>Hajime felt a tear fall from his own eye as he answered, “Well… I dunno, because… I’m afraid.”</p><p>“Afraid?” Mahiru’s hand clenched his shirt material, wrinkling it, “Of what, us? What do you think we would do!?”</p><p>“I don’t know!” he shouted, pushing her off of him in a burst of emotion, “Kamukura is dangerous, Mahiru! If he… if I… you would be in danger! I’m afraid, okay!? I’m afraid that… if you guys found out, you would…”</p><p>He trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish. Mahiru understood. She understood quite well, based on the slap she delivered to his face.</p><p>“How dare you!” she exclaimed, “We’re your friends, Hajime! We care about you! You’re one of us! If you had told us, we would have been working on a way to fix this this whole time! Do you really think we’re that shallow!?”</p><p>Her words stung deep in his heart, “Mahiru, please, I---”</p><p>“No, shut up!” the photographer exclaimed, standing up straight over him, “I’m talking now! Hajime, we care about you. You’re our friend! We love you! I can’t believe you would doubt that!”</p><p>“I don’t!” he exclaimed, “But… I’m dangerous, Mahiru! If it turns out there’s no way to fix me…”</p><p>“There will be! There has to be! We can get in contact with the Future Foundation again, they owe us for taking the hit from the third killing game anyway! They might be able to help you!”</p><p>“You don’t know that!” Hajime cried, “What if they can’t help me? What if nobody can!? What if I can’t be fixed!? If I’m just doomed to be Kamukura again, it… it would be better to just leave me behind. I’m a coward for hiding it from you, it’s not my choice to make, but…”</p><p>Mahiru gulped, “Hajime… this isn’t like you at all! It’s like you’re… giving up without even trying!”</p><p>“What do you even know about me, Mahiru?” he asked darkly, his expression souring, “I barely even know who I am, anymore. I’m not the same guy you met in the Neo World Program, how could I be?”</p><p>Mahiru hesitated.</p><p>“They fucked with my head in the Project, Mahiru,” Hajime continued, “To extents you can’t even know. They fucked with every part of me. The guy you met in the program was somebody who hadn’t gone through any of that. Me… I don’t even know who I am, really.”</p><p>“Hajime…” she murmured. She didn’t quite know what to say.</p><p>“You wanna know why I don’t like photos of myself?” the boy chuckled darkly, “It’s because of this fucking eye. I’m never gonna be rid of it. It’s just another reminder of the worst mistake I ever made. On top of the nightmares, the memories, my own fucking mind betraying me, I gotta deal with being disfigured for it too. Honestly, I might just take a page outta Fuyuhiko’s book…”</p><p>“Shut up!” she exclaimed, blinking tears from her eyes and letting them fall, “Don’t talk like that! I can’t… I can’t just hear you talk about things like that! I’m your friend, Hajime, don’t you realize that this stuff hurts me, too!?”</p><p>Hajime blinked.</p><p>“I don’t care about your scars, Hajime,” she sobbed, “I don’t care how broken you think you are. I don’t care what you think I would, or should do. I would never let you do anything like that. I won’t let you. Understand me?”</p><p>“Mahiru…”</p><p>“I know you think you’re an outsider here,” the photographer sighed, “And maybe you aren’t as wrong as I wish you were. But we all still care about you, remember that. You aren’t alone. You don’t have to fight alone. We all want to help you, you just have to let us.”</p><p>“But if I go back to being Kamukura, that doesn’t matter,” he shook his head ruefully, “Caring about me is all well and good. I do honestly appreciate you saying that. But… if I can’t be fixed, and if one of these days an attack gets the better of me…”</p><p>Mahiru swallowed sharply, “Hajime, you told me before that what breaks you out of an attack is something that’s entirely you. Something that wouldn’t matter to Kamukura at all, but matters to you. Right?”</p><p>“...yeah? It has to be something uniquely mine, that he never had.”</p><p>“Then can we not be that, Hajime? Instead of just hurting yourself, why not come to us? Kamukura never had us. He never had friends. You have people who love you for you, not just for your talents. You have a home here, with us. Just let us help you.”</p><p>Hajime hesitated. He hadn’t noticed, but as she spoke, the girl had been inching closer to him. As they stood now, her face was just inches away from his own, her wet olive eyes looking deep into his. </p><p>“I…” he murmured, absorbing her request. His fear of being tossed aside had never really allowed him to consider that option before, but now…</p><p>“Hajime,” the girl pleaded, resting a hand on his jaw to keep his gaze with hers, “Please. We all care about you. I care about you, okay? Just let me help you. Let me in.”</p><p>Hajime wasn’t quite sure what possessed him to do it. He wasn’t really thinking. His mind was reeling, his long-held phobias and mindset tossed into a hurricane that tore them apart and tossed the pieces all around. He just knew he needed something stable. Something to hold onto. Mahiru was here, her eyes with his, and something just clicked inside of him.</p><p>His first hand went to Mahiru’s lower back. The second behind her head, pulling her face closer.</p><p>The storm subsided as their lips collided. Hajime was terrified she would pull away, that she would shove him off, but she didn’t. She was surprised at first, but once she processed what was going on, she closed her eyes and kissed him back.</p><p>“Mahiru…” he pulled away only when his air ran out, gasping, “I’m so sorry. For everything. I know you probably don’t---”</p><p>Hajime was cut off by her kissing him again. This one was more brief, only lasting a second or two, but Hajime felt his eyes tear up as the last of his doubts evaporated.</p><p>“Don’t apologize for that,” she said as she held him close, “You can apologize for so much, but please, never apologize for that. I… really care about you, Hajime. I was a little scared to admit it before now, but… I think I love you, at least a little bit.”</p><p>Hajime smiled broadly, her words shining through like a clear ray of sun after a storm.</p><p>“Mahiru…” he whispered, “I’m sorry I never realized how important you were to me. I had never really let myself consider you like that, I was too scared, but… I think I kinda love you a little bit, too. If that’s not too crazy.”</p><p>“No,” she smiled back, “It’s just the right amount of crazy.”</p><p>“Red…” he thought, pushing back a lock of her hair as he held a hand up to her face, “How did I ever hate the color red? It’s so beautiful…”</p><p>“Hajime,” the girl leaned forwards and whispered in his ear, “I promise you, you don’t have to keep torturing yourself. If you need help remembering who you are, I’ll remind you. So will all the others. We care about you. We love you.”</p><p>“I know,” he sighed, “I’m just sorry it took me so long to accept that. I can be kinda dense about stuff like that.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” she smiled, “You’re gonna be okay, now, right?”</p><p>“If you’re here? Then yeah, I think I will be.”</p><p>“Perfect. Because I have no intention of leaving.”</p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>“...and that about sums it up,” Hajime finished, sighing.</p><p>Every member of class 77 was in silence as they observed him. Mahiru, who stood beside him, grabbed his hand and clenched it reassuringly.</p><p>“Goddamn, you really are a moron, huh,” Fuyuhiko scoffed.</p><p>“...yeah, I guess so,” the boy nodded.</p><p>“Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve resolved this dilemma,” the Impostor said, “I take it we have you, Mahiru, to thank for that?”</p><p>“Oh yeah,” Hajime nodded, “She was really the backbone of it. I’d still be in that funk if not for her.”</p><p>“I see,” Gundham nodded, “In that case, thank you for talking sense into him, Mahiru.”</p><p>“Oh, it was my pleasure,” she smiled, stepping up onto her toes to plant a light peck on Hajime’s cheek, which made him blush.</p><p>“WHOA!” Ibuki exclaimed, holding her hands up in a halting motion, “Tell me Ibuki wasn’t the only one who just saw that!”</p><p>“You weren’t,” Sonia shook her head, her eyes sparkling, “This is wonderful!”</p><p>“Wonderful?” Hiyoko scoffed, “Yeah, right. He’s just tryna steal her from me…”</p><p>“Oh, you’re happy for them and you know it,” Kazuichi sighed, “But man, Hajime got a girlfriend, huh… and here I thought he and I were gonna be single bros for life…”</p><p>“I don’t recall making that a promise with you, man,” Hajime chuckled.</p><p>“W-Well, um…” Mikan stammered, “Y-you’re gonna b-be alright, right? N-now, I mean?”</p><p>“I should be, if you guys are really on board with helping me through this. I… can’t really articulate how much that means to me.”</p><p>“Of course we are, man,” Nekomaru slapped Hajime on the back with a meaty palm, almost sending the smaller boy sprawling, “Whatever you need! After all, you’re one of my athletes, I can’t have you go disappearing into yourself on me!”</p><p>“Yeah,” Akane nodded, “You worry too much, man. We got your back any day.”</p><p>“See?” Mahiru smiled up at him, “I told you.”</p><p>“That you did,” he smiled back, “Never should have doubted you.”</p><p>“No, you really shouldn’t have. You’ll be alright, Hajime. We all will.”</p><p>“Thank you, Mahiru.”</p><p>“You’re welcome.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My Hinazumi streak continues.</p><p>I promise this is gonna be my last fic of these two getting together for a while. For the next bunch, they're already gonna be an established couple, I promise. I've covered them getting together in Island Mode, Non-Despair, and now Post-Canon, that's all my bases done. Also, I just love writing stuff where couples get together, sue me. </p><p>This is my second write of this story, the first one was a good deal darker. I decided to lighten it up a bit since my first draft touched on a lot more crummy subject matter that I didn't really want to put out there. A lot of people take solace in Hurt/Comfort, and that's why I wanted to make one, but I took it a little far in my first version. I write to entertain people, and that one I felt didn't really spark the reaction I wanted, so this one you're getting now is a lot lighter on the, well, self-harm. It was much more prominent originally.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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